I’m keen to move on from my Sunday doldrums around Sizewell and strike forth and start early for Butley. I’m going back a way along the Sandlings Walk that I came in on last night. The Sandlings walk is a longer and more meandering path than the Suffolk Coast Path, running nearby somewhat parallel to it, which takes in Southwold, Woodbridge and the countryside to the east of Ipswich. The morning is sunny but fresh and cool; weather as good as you could wish for when walking.
Past spooky Sizewell Hall for the last time, I am on my way at 7 in the morning. I pass through the Aldringham Walks conservation area. “Managed by the RSPB, it is an outstanding area of Suffolk Sandlings. The heathland, woodland and scrub are vital for ground nesting birds such as nightjars, woodlarks and skylarks. The open heathland also supports…stonechats, Dartford warblers and yellowhammers.”
My early start and the fine weather invigorates me. My mission to make it to Butley inspires new purpose to my trip, but I mean to take my time, and take fairly frequent stops, which is essential anyway, with my heavy pack. At a place called North Warren on the map I stop at a bench in front of a wooden fence, beyond which are thick ferns and a flat expanse marked as The Fens on the Ordnance Survey, a line of trees in the distance. I sit for ten or so peaceful minutes watching the sunlit tops of vegetation for bird action. I don’t see much, but I’m content. It’s Monday morning; a jogger goes by, a walker and his dog too, perhaps out before going to work.
Rabbits are busy on the heath; I see a dozen at a glance outside a warren that weaves through a little mound over to my right. When I was a kid in the sixties it was something of an event to see a rabbit. Now they are extremely numerous - fun to see, but commonplace. We should eat more of them, I think to myself. I am back on the railway track path I was on yesterday. The Sandlings Walk has gone west inland, and I successfully identify where the old railway meets the Suffolk Coast Path that has also turned inland after Thorpeness.
From here I should keep going west, missing Aldeburgh and heading for the village of Snape. Things go a bit wrong when I try to follow the path across a golf course. On this Monday morning, there are no golfers in sight, and I walk across a fairway, with great care, as a sign directs me, to a stile on the other side. Here I find three “Public Footpath” signs, pointing in different directions, but none is for the Suffolk Coast Path. I take a wrong right left turn to a road which starts taking me in the wrong direction. This detour, going through the outskirts of Aldeburgh, through some 60s municipal housing estates,adds a good hour to my journey. With their biggish front gardens the houses are quite nice. Many though are spoiled in their appearance by those horrible white plastic doors (UPVC I think they are called), that are blighting the appearance of houses and streets up and down the country.
I turn right at a roundabout onto the A1094 and it’s a hike in the hot sunshine up a steady hill. On the right the fairways of the golf course go on and on. How come there was no blue marker to guide me on the right route through the golf course on the other side of that fairway? I write “blame golfers!” along the top of the current page in my notebook.
The left turn I’m looking for is marked as the Sailor’s Path on my other map, which should take me through Hazlewood Common and Black Heath Wood to Snape. Just when I begin to doubt I’m going to find it, there it is, and I stop for a satisfied rest by the roadside on a grassy verge, and eat some of the food I bought in Aldeburgh yesterday. At half past nine I am nearly halfway to Butley, or at least, so I calculate, and the weather is as near perfect as it can be - sunny but gently so. A little way along the path as I get on my way again, I come by a small group of walkers and we stop to congratulate the day for a moment. On the left and right are fields of mauve wild flowers; none of us know what they are - not heather. The path is lined with ferns and blackberry bushes; this time with many ripe fruit, which I stop to pick occasionally. You know the nicest thing is ripe blackberries served with good white vanilla ice cream; try it!
Gradually trees crowd in on the ferny blackberry hedge, and then passing through woodland I come out across wet marshy grassland via a wooden path. The grass is peppered with pretty yellow primroses. Under more trees I cross a wooden bridge over clear pool or brook, where I watch sticklebacks dart about between the lilypads. Alongside the wood now, and the field on the right is a blanket of primroses. The walk is a lovely alternation of woodland, open meadows and marshy heath. Back in the wood, the living green trees struggle for light and space as they tangle with the twisted old dead limbs. Among taller trees further on, I stop to photograph toadstools and fungus on the forest floor, and then point upwards to capture the patches of blue sky and the criss-crossing sunbeams coming through the canopy. Any wood or forest is a beautiful place when illuminated from above by the sunshine, but Black Heath Wood, with it’s variety of deciduous and evergreen, tall and not so tall, living and dead, and in it’s marshy setting, is a particularly delightful place to spend a morning.
Coming out of the wood, the path widens big enough for tractors and at New England Farm joins the road into Snape. Smart houses line the road, and I go past a couple of rather appealing looking pubs which at this stage in the day (still morning) are not yet open. At the village green I take directions up the hill towards a the village shop. Two elderly but lively ladies wave to each other across the road ahead of me and as I pass by I overhear them enthusing about someone’s performance the night before. They’ve probably been to see a concert at The Maltings which is down the hill at the edge of the village, a classical concert venue that’s an extension of the area’s Benjamin Britten legacy. After visiting the store, I stop to eat a lunch on the village green, moving as necessary to make way for the local gardener mowing the grass.
I explore the Maltings for a bit, located by sluice, before the wide expanse of the Long Reach of the Alde. Something of a tourist centre, a destination for classical music fans predominantly, which in addition to the concert venue has gift shops, cafes, information centre, AND a residential sales office, where the new residences converted from their original purpose of malting local barley and brewing beer are on sale. Incongruously positioned in front of these aspirational residences, the shell of a burnt out Ford transit sits in the forecourt.
I cross the bridge by the sluice and turn left along the path that goes along the River Alde’s Long Reach. The fine weather has given way to blusteriness and occasional drizzle, and despite my luncheon on the green I begin to flag badly - I have been walking for 5 hours and the burden of my pack, which must be the weight of a nine or ten year old child, is taking its toll. Wearying of the straps pulling on my shoulders, after not having gone so very far since the last stop, I turn in towards the reach at a suggested picnic spot. Resting my pack on a mound of long grass, I walk through increasingly yielding muddy ground to the shore of the reach, with the water of the Alde shimmering to my left. Only then do I realise that the shining expanse beyond is not the surface of the water, but of mud; smooth, wet almost mirror-like mud. Sixty years ago the Long Reach was all drained farmland, but the land was lost to the great flood of 1953. Two studry posts standing in the mud a little in front of me may well be gate posts; one is thicker than the other, which has two indentations cut into it where gate hinges would have been. Viewing the landscape later from above on a hillside, I can see the outline of fields where former hedgerows rise a few feet above the sheets of mud, the old church rising on a low hill just beyond, as if on an island.
From here the path goes south through open farmland towards Tunstall Forest. To get there I go along a B road for a way, sampling a variety of plums from trees along the way next to some potato fields. Up ahead is a pig farm, and a blue marker tells me that my path goes straight through it. The weather has gone back to being sunny and warm, and I walk down the hill with a big field of arched roof pig stys on my right, like little nissen huts. In the afternoon sun the pigs, true to stereotype, wallow in the mud wherever the stuff can be found. Some gaze indifferently in my direction, as if in opium trances. The ill marked path leads me down past farm buildings and caravans, where quails skuttle round nervously, then up an incline where soft sandy ground underfoot slows my progress.I see no-one about, it is just me the pigs and the quails. Piglets too, suckling at their big, big mothers’ breasts in the sunshine. I turn right by a wood, more pigs on my left, the path levels out. I scare a few grouse who flutter noisily away; slow in take off, you can see why they are a popular shooting target. At the end of the field there is an unmarked stile and a road. I stop, ease off my pack, and allow my shoulders to enjoy some unburdened freedom for a time.
On the other side of the road is Tunstall Forest. Forestry commission signs mark an entry in, but I’m mistaken in thinking it’s the route I want, and get rather lost. I walk back to the road to try to find the correct signposted path. At a little car park and entry to the forest further down, a group of people stand waiting for their guide, who has not arrived. They can’t help me. After some slow and tentative exploration, I eventually come across a blue marker. It’s a bit tedious, I know, being lost, but one small compensation occurs to me, which is that while you are lost, you forgot about being tired; your attention is directed away from an aching back and shoulders, towards finding a solution to a more pressing difficulty. Once back on track, and striding through the pleasant sunlit forest, I find myself wearied again, and stop in a small clearing on the grass. Lying down, I become aware of the walking party I left at the car park, coming my way, and coming past me. “You haven’t got very far” says one to me. Mutely, I wave them all a weary wave, and smile them an ever so slightly sarcastic smile. Bon voyage banditos.
Unlike the variety of trees and other flora at Black Heath Wood this morning, Tunstall Forest is a commercial evergreen forest run by the Forestry Commission. The trees are planted mainly in straight lines, with space in between for logging equipment to move between them and remove the tall straight timber. Nearer the next village of Chillesford though there are wilder, prettier bits. Coming out the other side, I come to some pretty rural cottages. At a small road again there are poor markings, but eventually I find myself by the one village pub, a rather uninspiring looking pub restaurant that’s not yet open, and I get my bearings.
There are two roads that go to Butley which is the next village just over a mile away. Unwisely I take the main road, and I struggle at some points to avoid the oncoming cars, which are surprisingly numerous
It’s a quarter to four when I finally get to the “Butley - please drive carefully” sign. Six hours since I told myself that I was halfway here when I’d got to the Sailor’s Path. Either I’ve slowed considerably or my map reading is way off - maybe a bit of both. My campsite, which I’ve been tipped off about by a friend, is the field next to Butley Village Hall, where campers can stay for a trifling sum by prior arrangement. There is an email address and a phone number on the internet, just type Butley Village Hall into Google and it comes up. A lady called Di looks after it, and I had phoned her from Sizewell two days before, to check it was OK to stay, not sure at that point if I was arriving on Sunday or Monday, and she had told me to just turn up and pitch up and she’d “come and find me”.
I pitch my tent, stuff most of my things away inside, and make for the pub. Finding it closed, I come back, and a diminutive woman comes striding across from the end of the field where there’s a large farmhouse and farm buildings, her Scotch Terrier running eagerly ahead to meet me. “I’m going to have to charge you to camp here, you know” she announces. I introduce myself as the person who rang two days before, friend of Liz’s sister. “Oh!” she says, “Normally it’s £4.50 a night but as you’ve such a small tent it will be £3”. Not having the right change, she receives my fiver with a promise to give me my at the next opportunity. “I can unlock the hall for you, if you like, so that you can use the toilets and the kitchen”, she offers. Not seeing any disadvantage in this, I thank her and say that that would be great. She goes off to collect the keys from a lady who lives across the way. Coming back, she unlocks the hall and shows me round, all neat and smart, with a parquet floored main hall, kitchen, mens, ladies and disabled toilet. I’m not sure if she’s just letting me in while she’s there, or leaving me the keys, or what? “Usually it’s the Mothers and Toddlers Group on Tuesday mornings, but they won’t bother you - they’re of for the summer. “ Then she’s off, leaving me the hall unlocked for the night.
At 6 I am in Butley’s Oyster Inn, it’s Monday night and it’s empty but for a few farm workers. Farm workers in a modern sense - not horny handed sons of the soil, but a couple of students, one from Brighton, one a Kiwi, on some sort of work placement, and one a young farm manager, somewhat to the manor born, I’d say, accompanied by an older man who’s been ringing (a birdwatching term I think) birds of prey, for whom he buys drinks.
Leaving my notes at my table to get another pint of Adnams at the bar, I’m slightly (and unreasonably, my twitcher friends!) narked that the young buck assumes me to be a birdwatcher. I explain I’m on a walk and though interested in birds I might not know the difference between a hen harrier and a pigeon at a distance. Our young buck takes this as his cue to recount the following funny story.
‘A gamekeeper thinks he sees a game bird but shoots a hen harrier instead. To hide the evidence of his crime of shooting a protected species, he decides to eat it. Not all the evidence is consumed however, and feathers found round his bin lead him to his arrest and he is hauled before the magistrate. The gamekeeper admits his crime, but pleads mitigation, saying that pressure of work and fear of losing his employment made him do it etc etc. The magistrate is sympathetic, and lets him off fairly lightly. Before the case is dismissed, however, the magistrate says, “tell me, before you go, for I admit to being curious, what did the hen harrier taste like?”. To which the gamekeeper replied, “why somewhat between a golden eagle and an osprey, m’lud”’.
OK, not exactly word for word as it was told, but the gist, the gist.
Past spooky Sizewell Hall for the last time, I am on my way at 7 in the morning. I pass through the Aldringham Walks conservation area. “Managed by the RSPB, it is an outstanding area of Suffolk Sandlings. The heathland, woodland and scrub are vital for ground nesting birds such as nightjars, woodlarks and skylarks. The open heathland also supports…stonechats, Dartford warblers and yellowhammers.”
My early start and the fine weather invigorates me. My mission to make it to Butley inspires new purpose to my trip, but I mean to take my time, and take fairly frequent stops, which is essential anyway, with my heavy pack. At a place called North Warren on the map I stop at a bench in front of a wooden fence, beyond which are thick ferns and a flat expanse marked as The Fens on the Ordnance Survey, a line of trees in the distance. I sit for ten or so peaceful minutes watching the sunlit tops of vegetation for bird action. I don’t see much, but I’m content. It’s Monday morning; a jogger goes by, a walker and his dog too, perhaps out before going to work.
Rabbits are busy on the heath; I see a dozen at a glance outside a warren that weaves through a little mound over to my right. When I was a kid in the sixties it was something of an event to see a rabbit. Now they are extremely numerous - fun to see, but commonplace. We should eat more of them, I think to myself. I am back on the railway track path I was on yesterday. The Sandlings Walk has gone west inland, and I successfully identify where the old railway meets the Suffolk Coast Path that has also turned inland after Thorpeness.
From here I should keep going west, missing Aldeburgh and heading for the village of Snape. Things go a bit wrong when I try to follow the path across a golf course. On this Monday morning, there are no golfers in sight, and I walk across a fairway, with great care, as a sign directs me, to a stile on the other side. Here I find three “Public Footpath” signs, pointing in different directions, but none is for the Suffolk Coast Path. I take a wrong right left turn to a road which starts taking me in the wrong direction. This detour, going through the outskirts of Aldeburgh, through some 60s municipal housing estates,adds a good hour to my journey. With their biggish front gardens the houses are quite nice. Many though are spoiled in their appearance by those horrible white plastic doors (UPVC I think they are called), that are blighting the appearance of houses and streets up and down the country.
I turn right at a roundabout onto the A1094 and it’s a hike in the hot sunshine up a steady hill. On the right the fairways of the golf course go on and on. How come there was no blue marker to guide me on the right route through the golf course on the other side of that fairway? I write “blame golfers!” along the top of the current page in my notebook.
The left turn I’m looking for is marked as the Sailor’s Path on my other map, which should take me through Hazlewood Common and Black Heath Wood to Snape. Just when I begin to doubt I’m going to find it, there it is, and I stop for a satisfied rest by the roadside on a grassy verge, and eat some of the food I bought in Aldeburgh yesterday. At half past nine I am nearly halfway to Butley, or at least, so I calculate, and the weather is as near perfect as it can be - sunny but gently so. A little way along the path as I get on my way again, I come by a small group of walkers and we stop to congratulate the day for a moment. On the left and right are fields of mauve wild flowers; none of us know what they are - not heather. The path is lined with ferns and blackberry bushes; this time with many ripe fruit, which I stop to pick occasionally. You know the nicest thing is ripe blackberries served with good white vanilla ice cream; try it!
 | |
| The Sailor's Path, Hazelwood Marshes |
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| Black Heath Wood, on the Sailor's Path |
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| Black Heath Wood |
I cross the bridge by the sluice and turn left along the path that goes along the River Alde’s Long Reach. The fine weather has given way to blusteriness and occasional drizzle, and despite my luncheon on the green I begin to flag badly - I have been walking for 5 hours and the burden of my pack, which must be the weight of a nine or ten year old child, is taking its toll. Wearying of the straps pulling on my shoulders, after not having gone so very far since the last stop, I turn in towards the reach at a suggested picnic spot. Resting my pack on a mound of long grass, I walk through increasingly yielding muddy ground to the shore of the reach, with the water of the Alde shimmering to my left. Only then do I realise that the shining expanse beyond is not the surface of the water, but of mud; smooth, wet almost mirror-like mud. Sixty years ago the Long Reach was all drained farmland, but the land was lost to the great flood of 1953. Two studry posts standing in the mud a little in front of me may well be gate posts; one is thicker than the other, which has two indentations cut into it where gate hinges would have been. Viewing the landscape later from above on a hillside, I can see the outline of fields where former hedgerows rise a few feet above the sheets of mud, the old church rising on a low hill just beyond, as if on an island.
 | |||
| Gate posts on the Alde |
On the other side of the road is Tunstall Forest. Forestry commission signs mark an entry in, but I’m mistaken in thinking it’s the route I want, and get rather lost. I walk back to the road to try to find the correct signposted path. At a little car park and entry to the forest further down, a group of people stand waiting for their guide, who has not arrived. They can’t help me. After some slow and tentative exploration, I eventually come across a blue marker. It’s a bit tedious, I know, being lost, but one small compensation occurs to me, which is that while you are lost, you forgot about being tired; your attention is directed away from an aching back and shoulders, towards finding a solution to a more pressing difficulty. Once back on track, and striding through the pleasant sunlit forest, I find myself wearied again, and stop in a small clearing on the grass. Lying down, I become aware of the walking party I left at the car park, coming my way, and coming past me. “You haven’t got very far” says one to me. Mutely, I wave them all a weary wave, and smile them an ever so slightly sarcastic smile. Bon voyage banditos.
 | ||
| Tunstall Forest |
There are two roads that go to Butley which is the next village just over a mile away. Unwisely I take the main road, and I struggle at some points to avoid the oncoming cars, which are surprisingly numerous
It’s a quarter to four when I finally get to the “Butley - please drive carefully” sign. Six hours since I told myself that I was halfway here when I’d got to the Sailor’s Path. Either I’ve slowed considerably or my map reading is way off - maybe a bit of both. My campsite, which I’ve been tipped off about by a friend, is the field next to Butley Village Hall, where campers can stay for a trifling sum by prior arrangement. There is an email address and a phone number on the internet, just type Butley Village Hall into Google and it comes up. A lady called Di looks after it, and I had phoned her from Sizewell two days before, to check it was OK to stay, not sure at that point if I was arriving on Sunday or Monday, and she had told me to just turn up and pitch up and she’d “come and find me”.
I pitch my tent, stuff most of my things away inside, and make for the pub. Finding it closed, I come back, and a diminutive woman comes striding across from the end of the field where there’s a large farmhouse and farm buildings, her Scotch Terrier running eagerly ahead to meet me. “I’m going to have to charge you to camp here, you know” she announces. I introduce myself as the person who rang two days before, friend of Liz’s sister. “Oh!” she says, “Normally it’s £4.50 a night but as you’ve such a small tent it will be £3”. Not having the right change, she receives my fiver with a promise to give me my at the next opportunity. “I can unlock the hall for you, if you like, so that you can use the toilets and the kitchen”, she offers. Not seeing any disadvantage in this, I thank her and say that that would be great. She goes off to collect the keys from a lady who lives across the way. Coming back, she unlocks the hall and shows me round, all neat and smart, with a parquet floored main hall, kitchen, mens, ladies and disabled toilet. I’m not sure if she’s just letting me in while she’s there, or leaving me the keys, or what? “Usually it’s the Mothers and Toddlers Group on Tuesday mornings, but they won’t bother you - they’re of for the summer. “ Then she’s off, leaving me the hall unlocked for the night.
At 6 I am in Butley’s Oyster Inn, it’s Monday night and it’s empty but for a few farm workers. Farm workers in a modern sense - not horny handed sons of the soil, but a couple of students, one from Brighton, one a Kiwi, on some sort of work placement, and one a young farm manager, somewhat to the manor born, I’d say, accompanied by an older man who’s been ringing (a birdwatching term I think) birds of prey, for whom he buys drinks.
Leaving my notes at my table to get another pint of Adnams at the bar, I’m slightly (and unreasonably, my twitcher friends!) narked that the young buck assumes me to be a birdwatcher. I explain I’m on a walk and though interested in birds I might not know the difference between a hen harrier and a pigeon at a distance. Our young buck takes this as his cue to recount the following funny story.
‘A gamekeeper thinks he sees a game bird but shoots a hen harrier instead. To hide the evidence of his crime of shooting a protected species, he decides to eat it. Not all the evidence is consumed however, and feathers found round his bin lead him to his arrest and he is hauled before the magistrate. The gamekeeper admits his crime, but pleads mitigation, saying that pressure of work and fear of losing his employment made him do it etc etc. The magistrate is sympathetic, and lets him off fairly lightly. Before the case is dismissed, however, the magistrate says, “tell me, before you go, for I admit to being curious, what did the hen harrier taste like?”. To which the gamekeeper replied, “why somewhat between a golden eagle and an osprey, m’lud”’.
OK, not exactly word for word as it was told, but the gist, the gist.
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